David Adjaye – Collaborations. A Portrait of the Architect through the Eyes of Others

The buildings by the British-Ghanaian architect David Adjaye are characterised by the idea of dialogue: they seek a connection to place, to social context, to people. The film David Adjaye – Collaborations, commissioned by the Munich Haus der Kunst, also searches for dialogue. It spotlights Adjaye’s buildings and illuminates his working methods, in the form of interviews with curators, artists and friends.

Some of Adjaye’s best-known projects include public buildings such as the Stephen Lawrence Centre in London, residential buildings such as the Sugar Hill Development in Harlem, and museums like the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC, which is still under construction. Other buildings arose in collaboration with artist friends, such as The Dirty House for Tim and Sue Webster in London’s East End, and Lorna Simpson’s studio Pitch Black in Brooklyn, New York. For artists who commissioned them as well as for the architect himself, these buildings were milestones and engines of their careers.

Oliver Hardt

Oliver Hardt is a freelance director, writer, and filmmaker. After studying Applied Theatre Studies, he began his career in the early ‘90s as a theatre director at Frankfurt’s Theater am Turm. From the mid-‘90s on he worked as a writer and film director in various genres. In addition to addressing issues of black culture and history, a topic that was inspired by his own heritage, Hardt particularly focuses on art, design, architecture, and music in his films. As a lecturer for time-based media, he holds seminars and guest lectures, among others at the Academy of Visual Arts Frankfurt and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.

David Adjaye – Collaborations. A Portrait of the Architect through the Eyes of Others
Director: Oliver Hardt
D 2015, 49', Bluray, original with German subtitles